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I was outside this morning getting ready to take off my heads in the search for my block casting number, and I got smacked on the back with what felt like 100 pounds of steel. You guessed it, I'm SICK of all the metal on these cars. It's been a pretty annoying issue for a while.
So far, my doors, better known as tanks have bent a few sets of hinges, my hood struts are just completely gone, and I'm tired of having a 3000+ pound car.
The point of this is, does anyone know where to buy an original like IROC hood, made of fiberglass, or some fiberglass fenders? I've already found fiberglass doors. I'm going to wind up needing these parts anyway, before I can even think of getting my IROC painted sometime in 2010. I have a few small dents on my fenders and doors, not really noticable in blue, but once I go black, it'd be embarrassing just from how bad it would show.
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I would say you won't find an exact replica of the iroc hood in fiberglass, however they do make an aftermarket hood called the iroc Daytona ibelive that looks similat but has a cowl scoop alo. Their is also the factory fiberglass hoods from 82-84 camaros. As for fenders they are usally more expensive than what they save you in weight. They usually weght around 8lbs in fiberglass and 12-14 in steel not much of an inprovement. I belive you can find fiberglass parts website in a sticky in aftermarket parts review, on called U22 or something like that.
The fiberglass doors are proly a bad idea, alot of people on here are gonna yell at ya for bringing that up on a street car.
BTW you don't have to take the heads of to find the casting number, the out the last 3 numbers on the side of the block and that is all you need to find what block you have. you can actually see them from underneath if you look had enough.
__________________ "Speed has never killed anyone, suddenly becoming stationary... that’s what gets you.”-Jeremy Clarkson ,TopGear
I've seen that Daytona hood, it's pretty neat, I've thought about it. But if I was going to go for an aftermarket/custom look, I'd probably go with the SS, it's one mean looking hood. I think 6 pounds on each fender would be neat, just for replacing a body part. That's not bad, 12 pounds for body parts that will be necessary for me come next year, when it'll hopefully be time for my paint job.
But yeah, up22, I've been to their site once, I got annoyed with it because when I went there, nothing was categorized, it was just a list of things. Looks like they have some fiberglass fenders.
It's going to be complicated just to save a couple hundred pounds, very complicated. Especially with finding most of the body parts for these cars. I've already stripped most of my interior, including that extremely thick sound proofing on the rear wheel wells, all of the other sound proofing in the hatch area, up to under the back seats. I took out the back seats themselves. The radio, along with all four speakers. Basically I just put the carpet back down for it to look half way decent.
Ah, the quest to have a light American 80's car.....
I know what you mean by getting hit with the hood. today i was out chasing an electric fan problem and had to use vise-grips wrapped with electric tape to hold the hood up. it seems when it is cold the hood wants to shut on me.
__________________ 88 iroc camaro, 350 TPI, 700R4 corvette servo, and shift kit, 4wheel disk brakes. chrysler's sunburst orange pearl/ black- two tone paint. 4th gen seats, newer carpet. http://www.cardomain.com/ride/2918464
if you ever drive the car on the street, fiberglass doors are a really bad idea. Side impact=you dead
as for fenders, the 3rd gen fenders are not that large and for that matter not that heavy, you wont save much weight, if any, with glass fenders.
check VFN, they also have a lot of glass parts
I'm not too concerned about that, if I get T-boned by a car at even 20 miles per hour I could be dead, with a steel door. As I've stated, these are parts that are going to be necessary to replace, I believe I have a side picture of the of my IROC, you can see how crooked my fenders are, I don't know what happened to them. It would be nice to save 10-15 pounds here and there, I'm in the process of learning how to weld, and I plan on putting in my own 8-10 point roll cage. So the weight will be right back on, I just do not want to gain any.
I have full electric seats also, they also could be a significant weight loss, IF! I could afford some $1,699.00 Sparco Milano Prestige's! I really was laughing when I saw the price of them, with two of them seats, it'd be enough for me to buy a second Third Gen that's in decent shape!
I forgot. Here's a picture of basically the side of my IROC. In some pictures it seems to have a pretty decent body, which it does, with the exception of the door, and funky bent fender. There's also some orange peel in there. I'm not sure if it was a cheap paint job done before I owned it, or the metal just has lots of dings from just being driven over the years.
My main concern is, if I managed to save up and dump nearly $3,000 into a paint job alone, I want the body to look perfect. I'd like to go to some shows once in a while.
I'm not too concerned about that, if I get T-boned by a car at even 20 miles per hour I could be dead, with a steel door. As I've stated, these are parts that are going to be necessary to replace, I believe I have a side picture of the of my IROC, you can see how crooked my fenders are, I don't know what happened to them. It would be nice to save 10-15 pounds here and there, I'm in the process of learning how to weld, and I plan on putting in my own 8-10 point roll cage. So the weight will be right back on, I just do not want to gain any.
like i said before, i dont think you will loose much, if any weight with glass fenders, th3e metal ones are pretty light.
as for crashing, a glass door will do nothing, a car at 5mph would drive right through it. The stock doors in these cars can take a serious hit, they are strong.
You cant even use regular windows with the glass doors, need to use lexan, the regulator assemblies wont work in them, so that means your windows wont be able to be opened.
Why go through all that hassle and make the car unsafe? i dont care how much weight the doors will save, im telling you, its a terrible idea for a street car.
like i said before, i dont think you will loose much, if any weight with glass fenders, th3e metal ones are pretty light.
as for crashing, a glass door will do nothing, a car at 5mph would drive right through it. The stock doors in these cars can take a serious hit, they are strong.
You cant even use regular windows with the glass doors, need to use lexan, the regulator assemblies wont work in them, so that means your windows wont be able to be opened.
Why go through all that hassle and make the car unsafe? i dont care how much weight the doors will save, im telling you, its a terrible idea for a street car.
I know, I've realized that. I was talking to one of the many companies that sells them fiberglass doors. They just are not streetable at all. I'm pretty bothered by that, the steel doors are pretty heavy, and I'm aiming for light. It doesn't mix.
Dumb question but whatever, you sure the fender is bent? Ever try to re-align it??
Dumb question? I'm looking for some decently light-weight replacement body parts that are needed anyway, how is that dumb? Please explain. In 2010 I'm hoping to have my IROC nearly perfect, show ready, depending on if I have thousands to drop into a paint job. I live in southern Delaware, near multiple beaches, and close to O.C., there's a ton of car shows. I'd like to go, and not be embarrassed of it's body.
If you feel that this is dumb, please by all means, just edit your post, erase it, and forget that you ever clicked this thread.
As for your question, yes, it is bent, it was bent from the bottom, up-wards. Look at the difference from the height of the middle of the door, and the middle of the fender. I guess you'd call it the "trim line". They don't match up. I was hoping I could simply re-align it.
Hey from looking at your picture I think your body looks pretty good I don't think I would replace the parts on the passenger side anyway. As far as the alignment with your fender it does look to be off but it looks like your door is also slightly out of alignment it looks like the bottom of the door sticks out a little bit but just under the center of the door is flush. If I were you I would try to get the doors aligned first and then get the fenders into shape, I think this is the way the pros do it I saw it on a tv show a while back. I'm not sure if you are doing all this weight saving because you plan on racing it or what but if you've gutted a lot of your interior it probably won't be a show car anyway so maybe you would want to consider painting the car yourself it would save you some money to put into performance parts
check out http://www.autobody101.com/ there is a good article about body panel alignment on there and good info about painting a vehicle
by the way good choice on not using the fiberglass doors
well, you could swap from power windows to manual and save some weight, im sure you can lighten the stock door with some cutting and redesign on the innards.
__________________ "with a big enough hammer, anything is possible"
"The one who dies with the most tools wins!"
I'm planning on talking to one of my friends, who's into bodywork, and see what he says about the doors, if they're basically usable, or maybe I can pick up some new door skins. The fenders need to be replaced though, in the original post of this thread, I mentioned they're dented. It's a small dent, not really noticeable, but If I go along with my plan and get a black paint job, it will show, horribly. They aren't really a big deal, $199 each, not too bad. It's dented right on top, near where the fender curves up towards the hood, there's basically no chance of saving it, not worth the hassle.
I am pretty glad I got some more information on them fiberglass doors, the site I originally found them on didn't list anything of that nature about them being for race use only.
not sure if your looking for help figuring out the body panel alignment issue or not but if you are, a good picture of the fender/ hood gap would help, along with a full door/ fender pic. ok you caught me, I'm just curious.
__________________ 88 iroc camaro, 350 TPI, 700R4 corvette servo, and shift kit, 4wheel disk brakes. chrysler's sunburst orange pearl/ black- two tone paint. 4th gen seats, newer carpet. http://www.cardomain.com/ride/2918464
There is a slight gap between the fender and the hood, it's not enough to cause that kind of gap between the door and fender though. It's maybe a whole 2 or 3 millimeters, if that. I'll try to get some pictures later tonight.
Can this happen by NOT using the propper jacking points? My right fender is off similar to that, & the jack area is pretty much bent up.The left side is fine & so is the jack area.
The car has never been crashed.
Black does look good on 3rd gens!!
Can this happen by NOT using the propper jacking points? My right fender is off similar to that, & the jack area is pretty much bent up.The left side is fine & so is the jack area.
The car has never been crashed.
Black does look good on 3rd gens!!
It most definitely can. I jacked my Camaro up right under the fender when I replaced my shifter cable, didn't do anything, but it definitely can. Possibly that's what happened with the last owner, I don't know, it's been bent/out of line since I bought the car.
These are pictures of my IROC only a couple days after I brought it home. Good times, I coincidentally brought the car home on my birthday, of 2008, wasn't planned at all, made the deal in July.
I don't know of a set of doors that are "street" doors---Harwood's are "race weight" glass and don't have provisions for window mechanisms, etc..... I'm sure they could be made to work, but it'd take a good glass man a bunch of hours to get it done.....
I'm using 'glass doors on my '82, but it will just have removable (NOT ROLLDOWN) windows... Glass panels are going to be much, much more labor intensive to get a show car fit on them.... Possibly something has been tweaked on the right side of your car, could be improper jacking or maybe a trip in the ditch or some other form of impact that moved some of the inner structure around......
__________________ Of course it's for sale!!! Everything is for sale!!!!
Camaro and other projects pictures can be seen at:
Yeah I realized that a couple days ago, about when I first made this thread. It's really disappointing, I wish there were more of an aftermarket for these cars, in the fiberglass and carbon fiber area.
A few months ago I was thinking of ordering a carbon fiber cowl that's made for Third Gens, but I changed my mind, cowls just really aren't my cup of tea. I also was thinking about the SS Hood, but it'd be a waste, it's a non functional hood. I'd feel like a total r!cer.
I emailed a company that makes custom fiberglass parts, and asked if they could make an OEM IROC hood, I'll be expecting a reply similar to this. "Sure! It will just be in the range of $1,500-$2,000.".
This has me wanting to learn how to make fiberglass, I wish I actually knew how. I'd just use my existing parts as molds. It'd be pretty neat to have the satisfaction that I personally made my own doors, and hood.
Could proly get away with glass doors if you install a roll cage with door bars. But then your just adding weight back into the car, but on the other hand it is saftey.
__________________ "Speed has never killed anyone, suddenly becoming stationary... that’s what gets you.”-Jeremy Clarkson ,TopGear
I'm planning on having a roll cage anyway. I'd like to have a Camaro with mainly fiberglass body panels, that's about 3,000 pounds, or under. But, I am no dummy when it comes to safety. Heck, roll cages even look awesome. I'm also going to be taking a pretty heavy hit in the weight department when I get air conditioning and heat in my IROC, for the second time.
I emailed a company that makes custom fiberglass parts, and asked if they could make an OEM IROC hood, I'll be expecting a reply similar to this. "Sure! It will just be in the range of $1,500-$2,000.".
This has me wanting to learn how to make fiberglass, I wish I actually knew how. I'd just use my existing parts as molds. It'd be pretty neat to have the satisfaction that I personally made my own doors, and hood.
Making your own fiberglass molds and parts is neither cheap nor easy!!!! A quality set of door molds, inner and outer, with provisons for all the OEM stuff would not be a beginners' task IMO.... Then when you try to sell them, if everything doesn't bolt on and fit perfectly you end up with a bunch of folks saying your stuff is no good!!!!! If somebody will make you a quality OEM IROC hood, and have to first build the molds, do all the tooling for hood hinge and latch mounts, etc. you would be getting one heck of a good deal!!!! Time and labor for the inner and outer molds for a hood or door would easily exceed $1,000.00. I make some one-off molds for my own stuff, it is a very, very time consuming process.......
Hey sorry for trying to help you save some money. I obviously can see your body panels are out of alignment when I said "Hey from looking at your picture I think your body looks pretty good" I was talking about dents and door dings and what not if you don't like the advice I apologize for wasting your time.
I had my fender completely off last night, and set it next to the driver's side fender for comparison, it is bent just a little bit. Which is bad, that'll mean two new fenders, since the driver's side has a pretty deep dent in it, at an angle too.
I'll most likely be keeping my same doors, but I'm going to have to find some new door skins. They're in pretty rough shape also, looks good from far away, but there's a couple small dings and what not. The doors are really my only issue, it's far too impractical to use fiberglass doors, and buying new doors would be a waste.
88 iroc camaro, 350 TPI, 700R4 corvette servo, and shift kit, 4wheel disk brakes. chrysler's sunburst orange pearl/ black- two tone paint. 4th gen seats, newer carpet.
